How to Exorcise a Raccoon
by Fishguts-Sama
Summary: All raccoons have it rough nowadays in Tokyo, everyday its getting harder to live around the busy humans. Luckily for Rika, a talented transforming raccooness, she is one of the few that has a stable job. But was being hired as ghosts part of the idea?


_**How to Exorcise a Racoon.**_

"Attension! Attension! Please step away from the yellow line." The voice on the intercom spoke. The doors to the subway slammed shut as a young girl stopped quickly in front of them. She growled as the subway headed down the tracks, stuffed to the brink with people.

"Geez. I swear those always leave as soon as I get here." the short black haired girl sighed.

Setting down her black bag, she adjusted her work uniform. A white short sleeved shirt, tucked inside black slacks and matching shoes. A navy blue collar was tucked under her chin, and on her head sat a striped blue and white ball cap. A caption in red kanji read the words: Ichiban Raman! Or, The best ramen. A few minutes later, another subway came by and she took a seat by the windows. As the train started moving, she gazed back at her own reflection in the windows with dark eyes. Sighing at her appearance, the girl shuffled in her bag for a energy drink, which she quickly chugged down. Shortly, the dark eyes faded away, and started to gaze at the countryside now appearing over the hills. While Tokyo was certainly a busy place, many humans live out on the outskirts or in farther rural areas. After a couple of stops, the tired ramen girl stepped out of the nearly empty subway station. Waiting for her was a yellow cream colored car. A man with a grey beard, jeans, and white tank top sat in the drivers seat calmly. From the smiling face and wrinkles, you could tell this man has smiled most of his life.

"Rika-chan!" cheered the old man. "You're late again!" he chuckled loudly.

Rika dashed down the stairs and hopped into the car. Within a few seconds, Rika started shrinking and shrinking in size. Dark fur started growing all over her body, and even a bushy tail sprouted. Very soon, she transformed into a real full fledged raccoon! The raccoon glared at the old man annoyed before starting to talk herself!

"The trains the humans make us take always close on us raccoons, I swear they have some kind of way they know its us." Rika the raccoon sighed. "I was actually early out of work today."

The small car drove silently past the multiple rice farms, many Japanese were out planting at that moment.

"How many drinks did you use today?" the man yawned as the car took a turn.

"About...7." Rika replied. "Better than last week by far."

"Impressive! You manage to stay in human form pretty well nowadays, soon the elder will start to think you're human!" He grinned.

Rika snorted. "I'm very much a raccoon!"

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The small car drove past several farms and rural houses before heading into a small area with lots of tall greed trees and a forest of bamboo. Then they took another turn, and drove into a dirt driveway. Rika and her old father lived on a large old bamboo farm. The old house and the farm was hidden from the road, so pretty much the humans had no idea anyone, or thing lived there. When the car was turned off, the old man suddenly transformed into a raccoon as well, but he looked knocked out. Rika jumped and quickly transformed back into her human self.

"Yuichi! Sasuki! Ruurin! Help!" Rika screamed as she ran around the car and lifted the old raccoon into the house. As Rika went up the steps, three large raccoons dashed up the steps and into the house.

"Father!" screamed a male raccoon with a darker tail.

"What happened?" spoke another with lighter fur.

"I don't know, he just ran out of energy as soon as we pulled in.." Rika laid the old raccoon on a large pillow and transformed to her original form.

A raccoon with particularly darker eyes wimpered next to the father. "He's been working too hard.." the smaller female raccoon sighed. "With all this competition from the humans, we've had to work harder on harvesting the bamboo.."

"He cant go through this anymore." spoke a voice in the other room.

Rika trotted over the tattami floor and peeked inside. A old woman wearing a lavender summer yukata was patching up a blanket. Her hair was tied back in a bun, and was a dark silver color.

"All this work isn't helping his health, he should quit working." she sighed as her needle passed through the pale cloth.

"But mother, If he doesn't work, we'll never be able to harvest enough bamboo, or afford keeping this house and land.." Rika spoke quietly.

"...get another job Rika." the old woman spoke sternly.

"What?" she gasped. "I can barely keep my form with this job! I have to work from 2 am to 3pm everyday! And I have to drink several energy drinks to keep me going!"

"But you're the only one in this family that can transform for long periods of time, your brothers and sister couldn't get past the main preliminaries of transformation like you could." She stared. "Get another job." The old woman continued to sew quietly. "You're still young, don't complain to me about you not having enough energy."

Rika stared and angrily left the house. After walking in the woods for several minutes, she eventually came to a small area of grass. She stepped inside the small enclosure and gazed up at the blue sky. The bamboo forest, that was once miles long, and housed tons of other raccoons, was silent. Thinking back on her childhood, she remembered this small area as the same place where all other raccoons would train their skills. While many female raccoons didn't bother on learning, Rika was one of the few that could transform into humans early. But like other raccoon societies, they and the forest were destroyed by the powerful humans.

The young raccoon pondered her thoughts for a few hours before heading back to the house for dinner. Rika had brought home rice, dried noodles, and some radish. By the time she was inside, dinner was ready. The family ate quietly at the dusty table before all heading to sleep on old futons. Soon however, Rika was out of the house, and headed to the subway station on foot to catch her subway back to work. It was exstremely dark outside, but the subway arrived on time like a lit beacon. There was no-one on the subway, which allowed her to relax and spread herself on the long benches. When she arrived back in the busy city of Tokyo, strangely Rika had a sudden wave of sleepiness hit her. As she walked through the empty streets, she could feel her transformation weakening. In fear of returning to her original form, she opened her large black bag but to her horror saw only 2 energy drinks.

"How can this be?" Rika gasped, her eyes darkening. "I know I had enough in here for 3 more days.."

This wasn't the time to use the drink, Rika had a daily schedule: during the first 6 hours she would have three to four, another at lunch, and three for the last couple of hours. Even for someone who has large amounts of energy, she mainly took the energy drinks for emergencies. But even though, she knew that having only two drinks couldn't get her through her long twelve hour shift. With her eyes drooping, Rika tried to focus her steps until she passed out in a quiet tree 'd neighborhood. Her bag fell to the ground, and she transformed back into her original form as a raccoon. Flip, Flop, Flip, Flop. The steps of sandles walked to the tired Rika, but stopped in front of her.

"..I knew it." A voice spoke.

The unknown sandled man picked up the sleepy raccoon and went off into the night.

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Here weeeee gooo! If you all have NO IDEA where this story is being fanfic'd of, its from the amazing **Hayao Miyazaki**! (Or the guy who did _Spirited Away _and such.) _Pom Poko _is one of his earlier ones, and I definately suggest everyone to go see it! A lot of things in this story WILL NOT MAKE SENSE unless you see the movie:) But I'll tell you some anyway:

-Raccoons(_Tanuki_), Foxes(_Kitsune_) and Cats(_Neko_) are the only animals that can Transform(Henshin).

-The movie took place in Tokyo.

-Animals that can transform most of the time require the aid of Japanese Energy drinks.

This is the first chapter, which was much longer than I expected, but I hope people enjoy it! Thanks!


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